


In The Flood

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Series: Floodverse [1]
Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: Captivity, Drugged Sex, Drugs, F/M, First Time, M/M, Violence, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:59:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Berg Katse has some new toys, chained together in a cage. Who are they, <i>really</i> -- and how did s/he get them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Flood

Berg Katse _changed_ into a woman again a week or so ago, and s/he's in a nasty mood.

Not murderous, exactly, as when s/he is male: in male form, Berg Katse's not really functional, sexually. Instead s/he's violent, casually killing hir own men just to relieve the pressure. Now though, as a woman, s/he can feel pleasure. If circumstances are exactly right, s/he can even come, sometimes.

But it's _so_ tough to get circumstances exactly right.

S/he sends for hir new procurer. "I want two men."

"What sort of men would please Katse-sama? Medium, large, extra-large?" The procurer, a sharp-faced, thirtyish woman named Nariko, winks conspiratorially at hir. Katse scowls. 

"They're not for my bed. Don't presume! Now listen carefully. I need a straight _pair_ , you understand; friends, brothers, I don't care which. As attractive as possible, of course, but the relationship is more important to me than their looks. -- And more important to _you_ , if you dare displease me."

***

Nariko clears her throat, regains her equilibrium, and says glibly that she thinks she might be able to come up with just the thing. Then she goes scurrying out of the Danger Zone, as Katse-sama's personal territory has become known to the hapless ranks. This zone extends around Katse wherever she goes.

_That woman is one scary motherfucker. Where the hell can I find what she wants? They have to be genuine. Where will I find a pair like that in this place?_

She knows about Katse-sama's _change_ ability, but simplifies things by thinking of her as whatever she is at the moment: many Galactors do.

She doesn't have anything likely in stock, and nobody she knows has any such men available either. If Katse-sama had wanted a pair of _women_ , it would have been a much easier order to fill, given Nariko's connections.

No, there's nothing for it but to go down to Mech Construction and pick through the latest conscripts. A sorry lot, in general -- _thank the gods that Katse-sama doesn't care much about looks._

But today, there is a brand new shipment. They're so fresh that they're all still ray-stunned -- about a hundred and fifty men, mostly young, no doubt culled from some sporting event or other. Such slaves keep the constant construction of monstrous mecha possible -- their lives are used up quickly, but there are always more for the taking. She walks up and down the rows of unconscious bodies, eyes roving over them. After a little while, she stops short, staring down.

They couldn't be more perfect if they tried. Young. Strong. Wonderfully healthy. Brunettes, different shades; both rather attractive in totally different ways. It would have been nice to see what they look like awake, gauge their behavior; but there isn't time. As for their relationship -- well, they are certainly not brothers -- one's not even Japanese -- but they're clearly on the same team, with their numbered shirts and matching bracelets. Even if they are not _friends_ , they should at least know one another. They should do... and nicely. 

Nariko smiles her pointy smile as she turns to the glowering overseer, flashing the purple-edged procurer's badge which gives her automatic first pick of prisoners -- a 'carte pourpre'. Bingo. And not only might she get a bonus for her swiftness, but her reputation as a procurer of specialty stock is going to skyrocket. 

Sometimes you just have one of those days where everything goes your way.

She has them put on a gravity lift, and takes them out of the 'slave pit' (as those who do not work in Mech Construction refer to it). The overseer's face is like a thundercloud as he watches her take such prime stock out of his reach. She can feel good about this, above and beyond her own gain. It's a _much_ easier life to be a pleasure slave than a laborer. Usually, they live longer.

_Sometimes, they don't._

But that's _not_ her problem.

Nariko strips them herself, looking them over for piercings or tattoos. None. _Good_. Some scars, but they hardly detract from the overall effect. _Wonder what sport they play. Must be rough._

She puts their clothes in a box, and then after a brief glance at the bracelets tosses them in too. Maybe later she can see if they're worth anything. No time now. 

***

"Oh, how lovely!" cries Katse when she inspects her now-naked, unconscious purchases in turn. She is peeling back their eyelids. "He looks...sort of Italian, I'd say. And...oh! _This_ one's eyes are so _blue_."

Nariko stands silently, allowing her to examine the merchandise. Unlike some who would point out each attractive feature in hopes of driving up the price, Nariko disdains pushy salesmanship. Besides, she didn't even know till just now what colors their eyes _are_. 

It's unnerving, watching Katse-sama staring down into blind eyes to assess their color. The young men sleep on, with no idea what monster bends close over them to breathe in their beauty, the smell of sun on their skin.

"Where did you say they were from...?"

There is only the truth. A lie caught by Katse is a dangerous thing. 

"I'm not sure exactly, Katse-sama -- they're fresh conscripts from Construction. Some kind of athletes. They were wearing team uniforms. I _think_ that one was the team captain." Nariko points at the 'so-blue-eyed' one, his lids once more relaxed. After all, he'd been wearing Number One. "But I must admit, I don't know much about sports..." _Babbling. Stop_. She shuts her mouth.

"Glorious." A pale tongue-tip sneaks along Katse's glossy lower lip as she straightens up. "I can pretend they are the Eagle and the Condor. I can't wait to hear them start screaming! What do you think, my dear, which one shall I have rape the other first? Your choice. I want to watch them tear each other to pieces!" She begins to giggle in a way that turns the procurer's spine cold. Winding down for a breath, Katse eyes Nariko's expression speculatively.

" _Well?_ "

"I..." Gone blank, Nariko tries desperately to think around the hollow echo in her panic-emptied skull. _Katse's attention is bad. It's bad. Never let her take a personal interest in you. Say the right thing and get out alive. But what is the right thing?_ "That's... for Katse-sama to decide, surely. I only -- " 

" _Wrong_ answer," says Katse. And she smirks pure potent poison at Nariko, who can only stand there fighting nausea, her head bathed in sweat.

_I only... what? Sell them to you. Innocent. Asleep. Completely unaware._

Nariko's heard the stories. She has cause to know that some of them are true. But she hasn't been quite able to fully believe the worst of them till now, cringing before the febrile, destructive light in those pale eyes. 

Then a moment's relief as Katse flicks her eyes to her majordomo, standing silently near the door. A privileged upper servant, he wears a modest mask of his own, in colors that harmonize with Katse's purple suite.

"Take them to the baths, and _keep_ them deep-stunned. They're both in good shape, so don't give them a chance to struggle -- wastes their strength and risks their looks. Chain them together by the ankle: I want to see _rivets_ , not mechanisms, nothing that can be unlocked or undone. Give them, oh, three meters of stout chain. And in the meantime get that drugmonger back here, and tell him not to leave _anything_ behind this time. ...Oh, and -- Be sure to pay the slave dealer for my handsome prizes. I owe her a bonus! I'm going to enjoy the _hell_ out of them."

The majordomo nods. Katse turns away from Nariko once more and wanders unsteadily out of the room, still giggling, hands slashing at the air. 

_What?? Oh...God!... Is it that only the mad can have power? Or does power drive anyone who holds it mad?_

She shudders at the thought of her earlier satisfaction with the day. She'd thought she was delivering a handsome set of privileged boy-toys, not arranging a spirit-breaking rape scene -- or -- making them hurt one another even worse, probably killing and dying. _You know what Katse-sama is like. What did you think she wanted them for? Odd jobs round the house?_

_It's not my business what she wants them for! I just want to get out of here alive!_

Silent servants begin moving to obey the directives at a few fluid gestures from the majordomo. The young men are carried out. Nariko longs to make her escape from the Danger Zone -- but the majordomo makes her wait an agonizing interval. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, glancing nervously at the door Katse went out through. But each time she clears her throat he says mildly, "One moment -- " and turns to direct another, higher-priority task in the smooth running of Katse's household.

At _last_ the scrip is being counted out into her nerveless hands, though she does not really pay attention to the amount. But Nariko's heart sinks as Katse comes back into the room, followed closely by a thin little man whose eyes, when they catch sight of her, linger greasily on Nariko as he sits down. They have already been talking, and they've had a little something on the way. Katse-sama's altered body language is clear to the eye of experience. Something... stimulating. 

Shudder. Nariko focuses desperately on the majordomo and the money. _Hurry up, can't you hurry! Let me get out of here!_ But the man paying her moves at a snail's pace, deliberately frustrating her, keeping her there in earshot as Katse and her drugmonger plan her nasty little spree. 

***

"Well? Don't just sit there. What have you got for me?"

"Ah...Katse-sama, a moment, I beg you. It is...an unusual request." The pusher rummages through his capacious, well-stocked satchel, muttering to himself. Katse, having ingested a few of his samples, is now edgy and impatient, pacing beside the table, hands slashing at the air emphatically.

"Fool. Hurry! I want to enjoy my new toys."

"Katse-sama," says the pusher, "more information would help. Can I know the subjects' body weights?"

"Of course. I will give you an assistant. -- Mark me, 'Reiyaku Hakase': if you can't do what I want you had better say so now and find me one who can. If you fail me --" fiddling meaningfully with a laser gun.

"Please, please, Katse-sama!" He spreads long-fingered, almost skeletal hands. "All things are possible with the right dosage. I have compounds in my repertoire that could make a man dying of thirst shun water and gobble sand. What you ask is _easily_ within my ability to effect, it just might take a few hours, or, I must warn, possibly even days, depending on the subjects. Youth offers us the advantage of a short sexual fuse, it's true; but it also lends strength and idealism which will surely be used to resist... at first."

Katse halts in hir pacing. "That sounds so much more _appealing_ , put that way," s/he murmurs, almost purring, and then, on cue, Katse rounds on Nariko, drawn up to hir full imposing height. "There you are," Katse shouts, in an imperious tone that jars somewhat with the occasional giggle that s/he can't help. 

The pointy-faced little prat falls to her knees immediately. Well, _that_ was the right answer. 

The pusher eyes Nariko with curious interest, glancing up from his satchel. Katse notices, casts the gun aside on an end table. 

"I promised dear... What is your name again, dear? Nariko? ...I promised _dear_ Nariko here that she could choose which one -- takes the plunge." Sniggering. 

Nariko stares wide eyed at the floor, trembling. 

"Is she softhearted?" wonders 'Hakase' aloud. "That's curious."

" _Most_ curious. She was a whore half her life, weren't you dear? So now you just sell them. Come now, why be fastidious?"

Nariko cannot answer. _She only pretended to forget my name. She knows everything about me._

" _Was_ she...?" says 'Hakase'. "A whore...? She's kind of cute still."

"Please, Katse-sama," she bursts out, in a transparent attempt to be dismissed, "I can't choose. I'm not worthy to serve you..."

"Oh, don't be melodramatic, little Nariko! It is _I_ who decide worth here. And considering the excellent service you have provided me today, I consider you practically indispensible, my dear." Katse smirks at the poorly-suppressed flinch that shudders down the woman's back.

Too easy, really. But no less enjoyable.

"Still, I have a feeling you could use a little break from your usual work. There's no sense wasting a clever employee by offering her talents too small a challenge." Nariko's head comes up at this, and her face is tense with dread.

Katse feels the corners of hir mouth dimpling uncontrollably as s/he drives the spike home: "I'm reassigning you to my household staff, effective immediately. _You_ will coordinate the entertainment with Reiyaku Hakase here, and personally see that it is carried out to my satisfaction. You will do _whatever_ he asks of you. Do you understand?"

"Hai, Katse-sama," whispers the little fool, through bloodless lips. Her eyes look dead.

"Good. Now help me get this damned mask on. Sosai wishes to meet with me."

"Hai, Katse-sama." Barely audible, a scream of pain. Katse hears it clearly and smiles.

***

Not long after Katse leaves, the two men are brought back, still stunned, from their trip to the baths and the armorer's. The majordomo shows Nariko the Cage, watching her intently. Nariko keeps the deadness she feels inside plastered firmly on her face, learns her new duties while running on automatic. _It's nothing to do with me. I just work here..._

A one-way observation cell, with numerous nasty extras, this is the fate she's sold them into, and it's her duty to get them in there after having to weigh them for Reiyaku Hakase. She shudders. 'Hakase' is a tasteless slang title in this case -- and 'Reiyaku', Miracle, has nothing to do with him but with what he has to sell. The drug-peddler makes her skin crawl, but she must work with him. By Berg Katse's order, of course, but more importantly, because -- she deserves it. 

She works for Galactor, doesn't she? Willingly. This is the damnation she has bought and paid for. She was never sold into this by dissolute parents or tricked by a lover-turned-pimp -- the two most common stories among the girls she'd worked with. She hadn't even been in debt! She had become a whore willingly, thinking, _How easy, to be paid for something I want to do anyway. Why **not** use men for money?_ Yet the balance of using had always seemed to tip in _their_ favor. They used girls -- and boys -- up, and if one _died_ here and there, well, there were always more...

She uses the medical scanner to collect the basic information specified by the pusher. They are still naked, and right now it's cold in the Cage. To drive them together for heat, naturally. They look so young. They _are_ so young.

She tries to imagine what their lives are like -- what their team is like, whatever sport it is they play. _Played._ Something rough. Rugby maybe? Could be rollerball for all she knows of such things. 

She imagines rough lives, camaraderie, following a leader. Like Robin Hood and his men... Blue-eyed 'Robin'. and this, his second, could be 'Little John'. Or he _would_ be the ironic 'Little' if he were a bit taller. _Just 'John' then._

She liked those stories, long ago. 

She has to call them something. Even as Katse-sama has to call them something. 'Robin' and 'John'... the 'Eagle', the 'Condor'. _Does that make Katse-sama the Sheriff...?_

_What does that make **me**...?_

Nariko locks them in at last and stands at the door for a moment, breathing. A furtive motion out of the corner of her eye startles her.

Reiyaku Hakase stands there, smiling. It is not a pleasant sight. His shifty eyes leave a lingering greasy feeling where they pass over her, and his teeth are long.

He takes the scanner. "Excellent, excellent -- Katse-sama will be pleased; the beta male is everything we could hope for for the purpose. No apparent allergies, either... _that_ makes it easy."

'Beta male'. Like an animal. Katse's 'Condor'. _Little John._ More and more names, never mind his real one, whatever it is.

She eyes the drug-peddler thoughtfully for a moment, with his bulging satchel of wares. Yes, he's disgusting... But he's got antidotes for that.

She's _evil_ , isn't she? Galactor whore turned Galactor slave trader? Why not wallow in it?

"Then shall we toast to our work together, Hakase?" Nariko hears herself smiling, and doesn't care. "With...something?"

The smile spreads to his face like an oily stain. "By all means, my dear. Let us celebrate... the beginning of a pleasurable and productive acquaintance." 

Whoring herself for it, even to the likes of him, makes no difference at all at this point. And she knows what to do, after all. But first...he's got absolutely _everything_ in that satchel, including at least ten fast paths to her idea of 'comfortably numb'. 

Nariko takes three of them, and at last feels the steel bands around her ribs beginning to ease their crushing embrace -- for a little while. Then she gets the little weasel off as quickly as possible, and retreats into blessed unconsciousness.

***

Ken's cold. That's the first thing he knows.

... Cold, and his head hurts. Joe is near. Can hear him breathing. No one else though.

Head hurts. His tongue feels thick, his entire neck a fiery, stiff knot. He's been stunned. 

So cold. He's naked! He is lying on a hard floor.

_Where?_

The paralysis is agonizingly slow to retreat. He has been stunned several times running. Time has passed -- no knowing how much. Joe has surely taken even more stuns, knowing him, and will take longer to wake. 

Ken keeps breathing, willing himself to be calm. Eventually he regains enough of himself to force his eyes open.

It doesn't help much. He can't really focus yet. But it's a start. He is in a dim, enclosed space, and the ceiling feels close. He's not sure that he's underground, but he's sure he's meant to think so.

Ken breathes, pushing away the headache, relaxing his neck. He is able to move his head slightly, finding a much more comfortable position for cramped muscles. 

The rest of his head seems free now from paralysis. His eyes finally respond properly. Turning his head toward the sounds of Joe's breathing (twisting his neck feels almost indecently good), Ken sees:

_Joe._

Joe lies as naked as he, curled up in a shivering, fetal ball on the floor of the cell. His face, relaxed in unconsciousness...

Ken pushes himself up onto half-numb elbows.

_Is that a...?_ Yes, it's a chain.

Joe is shackled, a heavy chain snaking up to a dull gunmetal cuff on his right ankle. No, not even shackled: there are _rivets_ visible on the cuff.

Ken drags harder with his reawakening upper body, sitting himself up against the wall, which is every bit as cold as the floor. The chain rattles...

The other end of the chain is attached to his own left ankle.

Ken frowns down toward his foot, which he can't feel yet. 

Joe's shivering intensifies. When he can manage it, Ken pulls himself close and lies down, turning his back, making contact with as much of Joe's icy skin as he can manage, as Joe does not uncurl. Stretching his free arm back, he drapes it as far as possible across Joe's ribs. 

It's as much heat as he can give, but it eases the shivering considerably. His own too, he realizes.

Joe's heart beats slow and steady under his arm. 

_Good._

***

The pusher shakes her, grinning. ""Come on, Nari-chan. The alpha's awake. You've got to see him."

Surfacing groggily, Nariko almost stiffens at the uninvited diminutive, at his hands on her. Then she wakes up enough to assimilate "alpha" and "awake", and remember what they mean.

It doesn't matter what she's called. She feels sure that when you sell your soul, _all_ your names go with it. Along, apparently, with your personal space.

She is lying on a couch. She is presumably somewhere in the Danger Zone; she can tell by the decor. She focuses on Reiyaku Hakase's face. "Where," she says groggily, trying to connect her thoughts, "...where is Katse-sama?"

He stands. "Still with Sosai. She hasn't come back yet. If whatever she's doing isn't going well, she's going to want to kick back and have a little fun. Come _on_ , Nariko. Let's go. She's _not_ safe to disappoint."

_She's not very safe to **please** , either._

But Nariko gets up, readjusting her clothes, and goes to see if 'Robin' has indeed awakened. She wants to know what his face is like, when animated with his personality. 

The cleaning staff are still here -- they work feverishly to complete their tasks and be gone before the 'lady of the castle' comes back to her suite.

The observation area for the Cage is new, and there is still a smell of paint and fresh solder. Katse had it all installed not too long since, and all of the buttons and monitors are shiny and new -- unlike a lot of everyday Galactor tech, substandard and recycled from inappropriate bits. No, in Katse-sama's quarters, nothing is skimped on.

There are comfortable seats, many screens -- there are cameras embedded invisibly in the Cage's walls to observe every detail in close-up, for when the view through the long wall is not considered sufficient. There is a vent system that can be used to deliver vapor drugs -- or to cut off oxygen. 

And most importantly, there is a stasis field -- a way to interact with the occupants physically, without fear of their response or even their knowledge. A nascent, dangerous technology. There are lurid warning stickers all over the controls.

'Hakase' gestures her sarcastically into one of the chairs, and Nariko sits down, getting to know the controls, calling up screens till she finds a good angle.

Yes, he's up all right. And nobly sharing heat with his friend. Those blue eyes are open, darting into every corner of the Cage, probing for clues, weaknesses. He flexes his hands and feet methodically, breathes deep and even. _He's cool in a crisis._

'John' -- the 'beta' has been stunned about six times to the alpha's four. But he's starting to show signs of recovery now that he's warmer. They both have amazing stamina. 

It just makes Nariko feel more sorry for them, and more guilty. Katse will just have a longer, headier struggle breaking them over the wheel of her lust, making them into scapegoats for the Eagle and Condor. 

'Robin's' face is arrestingly beautiful. There's nothing feminine about him (though his hair is a bit long), but his eyes and his mouth are exceptional. A face that Kaori would have called _like, drop dead **wow**._

The blue eyes seem to stare straight into the camera for a moment, then move on.

Nariko shivers.

***

A rumbling growl shudders through Ken, but it's not his. Joe's chest, hard and lightly furred, presses against his back. Ken steals just a moment for himself -- an instant of half-waking make-believe. 

Retrieving his again-numb left arm, Ken sits up, turns to look down at Joe. Joe can scarcely move yet, and his eyes are still shut, but he tries feebly to reach after the retreating warmth: _come back!_

And, despite himself... Ken feels a terrible pang of _yearning_ in the center of his chest, sorrow spreading swiftly like fallout in its wake.

Thinking about Joe reaching for him like that for real -- 

_Stop it. You're a fool. Concentrate on something you can ever do something about. Like getting out of here alive. And if that isn't enough motivation for you... then concentrate on getting him out alive._

That does help him focus -- then blurs it by shaming him further. This is not the first time he has had such a train of thought. Nor is it the first time he has tormented himself for it. 

_Stop it NOW._ He uses his best last-ditch trick to center his attention: the familiar checklist for takeoff in the Cessna. Taking a deep breath, he places himself there in the cockpit, checking gauges, flipping switches. The calm of the open sky slowly enfolds him step by step until finally he checks the fuel level one more time, and then he is ready, ready to fly, _Contact_ \--

Joe's hand grips his wrist.

"rrrRrr... 'r we?"

"In trouble," says Ken.

The short, barking noise is apparently a one-note chuckle. "Whrhels'snew?"

Joe drags himself up, or tries to, but he moves too fast for the slowly-receding stun paralysis. Overbalancing, he sags heavily against Ken's arm, shaking.

"Don't push it," says Ken, keeping the calm in his voice via sheer force of habit. "It takes time to wear off." 

"Can' siddaround, wasting time, gurra get Ryu t'pikkusup, wherrahell?" It's like he's punch-drunk. Stubborn bastard, talking and moving at a stage in recovery when Ken was still flat on his back trying to breathe calmly. 

"Actually," says Ken wryly, "time's about all we've got. Plus some new legwear."

"mm?" mumbles Joe quizzically, but he slumps again, bruising Ken's arm and shoulder with his weight. Ken bears him up, stoically. When Joe is awake, it's much easier to act --

_\-- normal?_

Yes. Normal. As if looking at Joe Asakura and not wanting him could EVER be normal.

But let Joe _catch_ Ken wanting him, and nothing will ever be normal again.

Eventually, another rumble: Joe is resurfacing. His head, heavy against Ken's shoulder, lolls from side to side, dreamy and uncoordinated. Then, with a tremendous effort, he shakes himself all over like an enormous wet dog and sits up as Ken did, with his back to the wall.

Ken knows that Joe has to be numb, still, from at least the chest down; he's moving by sheer force of will alone. Because he has to.

Ken knows well enough how that is.

Joe sags against the icy wall with his eyes closed, shivering. His hands spasm, trembling, and he scowls, but does not speak again.

_He's trying to sign_ , Ken realizes after a while. He concentrates on Joe's twitching fingers: it's like trying to read the lips of a person who has no teeth.

Finally, Joe regains enough of himself to make himself understood. [Know us?] he signs, making the interrogative lift with the side of his thumb.

[Just woke too,] signs Ken, then shrugs. [Not certain].

The sign code they use is exclusive to the Ninjatai, developed by Nambu and a pair of linguists at the ISO. It has a somewhat limited vocabulary, as it is intended solely for combat. Between Joe and Jinpei, though, it has been greatly expanded over the years with enough "unofficial" words to turn Daniel Webster's grave into a centrifuge.

[ _this_ shit, what, then?] Joe jerks his leg and the chain scrapes the floor. Simultaneously his hand spreads to indicate their state and their surroundings both. [Us, been guests before. _This_ is new.]

True. Ken nods. [But - the cat's not here to play with us. Hasn't made self known. Would have come while us still helpless.] The sign for "helpless" actually means "incapacitated", but a great deal of nuance can be conveyed between two who know each other so well. _Even if he doesn't know me at all_ , says a deep-inside voice, at once glad and heartsick.

[The cat's a _pussy_ ,] signs Joe sourly, unaware. The same sign given two ways -- one rudely.

Ken shakes his head slowly. [Seems... not... regulation.]

Joe rolls his eyes, but then frowns too in agreement, glancing down at the chain. [Something... funny about this.] The sign _means_ 'funny', but the vagueness with which he shapes the sign puts Ken on the alert suddenly. 

Then:

_! -- An icy-silver inchworm of fiery cold trickles up his spine -- !_

And abruptly the world keels over into a shifting, jumbled slam of paraly --

***

Katse comes back, but only to leave again. She is distracted and flustered, so much so that she has nearly forgotten her new prizes. When her majordomo reminds her of them, however, she regains her usual self for a moment. The eyes seem to gleam through the mask-holes.

"Ahh -- my 'birds'... Nariko!"

Nariko prostrates herself. "Hai, Katse-sama."

"How are they?"

"They are recovering from stun, Katse-sama. Both healthy. Reiyaku Hakase says the -- beta is ideal for the purpose..."

But Katse is already walking away, saying only, "Very good, very good...Hakase has my utmost confidence..."

Nariko releases the breath she hadn't realized she was holding, slowly get up from her knees. 

_Not yet._

It doesn't have to happen yet.

Unfortunately, the pusher interprets Katse's "utmost confidence" as a license to experiment.

He sends Nariko in with an injector, as though she is now his Reiyaku Nurse. The stasis-null unit is buckled around her waist. More warning stickers (mounted unhelpfully upside-down): **DANGER. DO NOT REMOVE NULL UNIT WHILE STASIS IS ENGAGED**. No icons -- the tech is so new they haven't even picked one. The weight chafes her hips with the nylon strap through her flimsy uniform.

The weight is nothing against that of her heart, dragging her every breath like a millstone. The plastic syringe barrel is cold in her hand.

'Hakase' won't administer his own miracles, of course. Not if it might actually endanger him. 

He grins at her like a long-toothed dog, tongue lolling, and activates the stasis lockdown.

Nariko waits with her hand on the door. When the green light blinks on, she opens it and forces herself into the Cage. As she crosses the threshold, a red light on the side of the unit she wears flickers on. Her skin begins to tingle and buzz.

Stasis-null works, but imperfectly. The first step into the cell is like shoving her way into a space filled with highly pressurized, icy Jell-O. The drag is hardest on her head and feet. 

Vague terror fills Nariko as she faces and focuses on her 'patient'. A troubled frown is frozen on his face, eyes half-lidded, hands caught in mid-gesture. They have been flashing hand-signs at each other -- _that's something baseball players do, isn't it...?_ but she could understand only the one or two rather universal ones this one used.

It's her first really good look at 'John' with his eyes open, and she stops her painful, shuffling steps to stare. 

He's handsome -- not pretty. The strength of his jaw, the shape of his brows, the unruly dark jumble of his hair... and now his eyes look blue and not grey. Not like the other's vivid blue, but still.

The earmitter she wears crackles into life, startling her. "Nariko! Wake up, keep moving in there. Quick shot to the neck, like I showed you. If you hang around too long, they might remember seeing you afterward." Which would apparently somehow queer the results of his experiments. 

One dragging step, two more -- every muscle in her legs locked in a sick howl -- and she can watch it all happen like this, from the remoteness of her own skull, as her hand with the injector reaches 'John's' neck and the first wave of drugs slams home, entering his bloodstream with a deafening hiss.

She glances, just once, at 'Robin's' blue-topaz eyes -- they are fixed upon 'John's' face -- and then she wrenches herself around and takes the couple of steps between her and the door as though pursued by the army of the dead.

The pusher lets her out, plucking the spent injector from her numbed hand. The stasis-null cuts off automatically once past the sensors around the door, and Nariko stumbles to her knees with a hoarse cry of surprise. Blood circulates painfully through her feet, and her head throbs, threatening blackout.

Wordlessly -- for once -- he helps her up, unbuckles the belt from her hips, and hands her a round gold-red _kiali_ capsule. Nariko snatches it, crushing the shell between her teeth, shuddering at the bitter musty taste that coats the back of her tongue. 

She gags slightly, but recovers as the _kiali's_ familiar loosening begins in the center of her chest, right where it aches most. She does not bother to struggle when Reiyaku Hakase pulls her down into his lap. He beams at her, then deactivates the stasis in the Cage, releasing them to move once more.

"What did I give him?" she hears herself asking, far away. 

"Nothing too creative yet," 'Hakase' says; "Just a Number-Nine cocktail. I want to see how he responds to something simple. It'll help me narrow down the mix for the big event."

_Simple_. But now she's too disconnected even to hear her conscience, much less listen, so she leans back against the pusher and gazes at the monitor. He's bony, and wears too much unpleasantly-sweet cologne. But he's warm. He puts his arms around her, and it feels almost good.

_So what?_

She watches the screens, blinking dully with glazed eyes.

***

-lysis --

Ken gasps, disoriented. His vision is clearing. 

"What the hell?" _Stasis_ , his mind oh-so-helpfully replies. _Someone was here._

He blinks, focuses on Joe. Joe is pale, eyes closed. 

"Something's happening," Joe whispers.

"What do you mean?" Ken's heart lurches with adrenaline. _What is going on?_

"Happening. Something. Dizzy," Joe whispers in a rush, licking his lips. Alarmed, Ken reaches toward him, but is prevented by Joe's hand whipping up between them, hovering unsteadily. Beads of sweat are forming on Joe's forehead. "Nno, don't touchmeI'llbesick." 

Ken holds very still, staring in helpless, watchful alarm. The chill air works for them in one way, at least: Joe's nausea passes quickly. His panting gives way to deeper breaths.

His head lolls back and he stares at Ken, or rather toward him. His eyes have a vague, glassy sheen. Then he closes them again.

_He's been drugged? For interrogation?_

While they were in stasis. Someone came in and injected... both of them? Ken checks his responses, a swift, familiar reflex of internal attention. No dizziness or nausea. He is cold, thirsty and hungry. His muscles ache from the cold. Nothing more.

Someone came in and injected _only Joe_. What with? An interrogation drug... or a poison? Did they _poison_ Joe and leave them chained together?... _Or -- there are things worse than poison._ There are biotoxins, manufactured diseases... _No!_

But if it is a poison, it's a merciful one. Joe's face relaxes, his pallor slowly replaced by a muffled glow. When he opens his eyes again they are vivid with a kind of fever-light. 

And he grins lopsidedly at Ken, eyebrow arching. Ken feels his heart squeezed once, twice in rapid succession. This is Joe with his guard down. Ken has seen this face before, yes, but only after many hours of long, painful struggling -- and/or drinking -- to do so. This abrupt lifting of the gates is disorienting, disarming. 

"Lot warmer now," Joe says, almost clearly. "Nice." He doesn't seem able to sign in this condition. In any case, he doesn't try.

Ken shivers. For him, it is as cold as ever. Colder now, since they sit apart. Though Joe does not seem to feel sick anymore, Ken is reluctant to touch him now. Without Joe's natural defensiveness between them, Ken is afraid he will give himself away. And he does not want to be tormented, either.

Not any more than he already is, already has been every day, every single day for the last ten years.

"This feels like something I done before," remarks Joe. His speech now sounds normal, but his voice is curiously hollow. "Well. Something done to me."

"Nani?" 

"One time this girl I hooked up with at a nightclub -- dropped something in my drink. I didn't know. I found out afterwards what happened from people at the bar."

Ken holds his breath. _What?_

Joe sighs, blinking at him slowly. "I was so _stupid_... I fell for it, I actually fell for a 'what's that over there'... Never even gave it a second thought. It woulda served me right if she turned out to be a -- you know -- wouldn't it? That time, I was lucky."

It certainly does seem like it could be an interrogation drug -- Joe volunteering such a thing... though he did manage to keep himself from saying 'Galactor'. Still...! Letting himself be drugged! Ken doesn't have to wonder why he never heard about this before.

"The sex was great," Joe is saying. "Course, I'm not allowed in the club anymore."

"Joe! -- in the _club?_ " 

"I didn't have any sense of where I was. I couldn't help it. I was just glad she was _willing_. But, turned out, she was the one who did it to me anyway." Joe closes his eyes.

Stunned by this confession, Ken can only sit -- what else is there to do? -- and hug his knees, shivering. 

"This is different, though," Joe says after awhile, a little dreamily. "Don' think I could move if I wanted to." He tries. He manages to lift his head a bit so as to lean it against the wall again at a better angle, opens his eyes. His focus looks soft, and when he blinks it is very slow, each close-and-open separate and visible. 

Joe frowns slightly at Ken. "You cold? It's hot in here."

"It's cold. You're hot."

"Well, c'mere then."

Ken inches over. Now he has to, because otherwise Joe might connect his reluctance with the earlier mention of 'willingness'. It's not _very_ likely, given how dreamy Joe has become... but it's still possible. And the instinct that makes Ken glaze over with bland faux-ignorance around Jun whispers this to him now. 

Joe is so warm. Ken leans against his side, and Joe casually scoops him closer, loosely hugging him with one arm. The warmth wrapped around his stiff, aching neck and shoulders is intensely pleasurable. Ken ducks his head down and tries to think of nothing but soaking in the heat which Joe is throwing off. 

Joe breathes deeply for awhile, murmuring something to himself. He's counting, Ken realizes, counting numbers. Then he twitches a little, raises his head, and inhales deeply through his nose with a puzzled expression. Finally he says, 

"Someone was in here."

"No kidding," snaps Ken. 

"Well, just thought you oughta know is all." Joe closes his eyes. "Someone wearing jasmine. A woman. I think she's been crying. ...but there's always tears, whole patterns like..." licking his lips, "dew on cobwebs, there's always the slant six... The spider is talking to me... it says where you are..." He doesn't seem to be aware of his own muttered words now. They seem to drone on without him... "Saw it. saw it. Stuck in the gears. Huge shadow fucking up the sky... take it, keep it, throw it, why didn't... curse of the curry-comb?... ahh... KEN! HERE, IT'S HERE!"

His sudden shout startles Ken; as he jerks his head up Joe's chin collides with it. "K'so!" Ken hisses. His skull radiates pain, and he has bitten his tongue. It stings sharply, and the copper taste brings a rush of saliva to his mouth. 

"What! _What's_ here??"

Joe turns to look at him, puzzled. "I... smell blood..."

"I bit my tongue."

"Oh." Joe goes very still. "Ken?"

"Nani?"

Joe is staring unfocused into the corner of the room, seeing something Ken can't. "Joe -- what is it?"

Joe begins to inch backwards, then abruptly notices that Ken is sitting staring frozen at him and grabs his arm, dragging him back with him toward the opposite corner of the cell. His lips are white. "Blood, it's _blood_ , we'll drown --"

"Joe! There's nothing there!"

"Fuck you, are you blind?? Are you BLIND? There's BLOOD pouring in on the FLOOR! RIGHT THERE! I CAN SMELL IT!"

He shakes Ken, rattling his teeth. "MY GUN! IT'S HER -- GIVE ME MY GUN -- "

"Joe -- I don't _have_ it -- !" Nothing, they have nothing but the chain.

But Joe isn't listening. His eyes are peeled wide, pupils huge. Joe is caught in a nightmare, fueled by the smell of blood.

Ken shuts his mouth and keeps it shut, willing his nicked tongue to heal faster. It seems to help -- at least, it doesn't make things worse. 

Joe shakes Ken once more, then abruptly shoves him away hard. He slumps in the corner, panting and...crying? Yes. Muffled sobs, like the little kid it seemed Joe never was. "Mama," he moans, clutching his stomach, "Papa..."

Ken crawls as far away as the length of chain will allow -- not its full length, as some of it is trapped underneath Joe's huddled form. The best comfort he can give, surely, is to spare him the smell of his parents' blood. He sits, facing away, mouth resolutely shut, and thinks bitterly of the sparkling clear skies that followed the death of _his_ father.

***

"Acutely sensitive to smell," 'Hakase' notes. "That ought to be useful later." He talks like the men in there are lab rats.

Beside him, Nariko tears her eyes away from the close-up display of 'Robin's' face.

***

Berg Katse suffers.

As punishment for the most recent disaster, the full extent of which s/he had tried to conceal, Sosai has hir pinned down in a lab, experimenting with hir endocrine system and laying down some fresh programming while he's got hir handy.

S/he's male again just now. Sosai made sure of that when he broke hir skull with telekinesis. This forced hir to _change_ before s/he had had any chance at sexual release as a female, which only makes it worse for the next cycle. It is really best for everyone that Katse is restrained as s/he is, head to foot in a steel sensor-lined cage, fed all the massive load of nutrients s/he needs to recover from a trauma _change_ by IV drip.

Utterly immobilized, like an animal. S/he can blink, scream, plead. No one will answer. Once in a while Sosai rapes into hir head with the old Talking Game, the magic sleepy puzzle that shows hir exactly how and why s/he will rule the earth. Hir bedtime story since s/he was a child. The one where it all makes sense.

The rest of the time, s/he is left alone to burn.

Hir health is better than it has ever been, for Sosai's experiments have actually been beneficial, relieving some subtle imbalances which have always given hir trouble. And though hir stomach roils with longing for real food, the drip's cargo has hir in a balance that s/he can never match with hir Galactor lifestyle and peekaboo appetite.

The bitter irony, and Sosai's most pitiless punishment, is that by now s/he is not only worked up enough to have an erection but _capable_ of one, and s/he can't even move hir hands! 

So s/he burns, hard and helpless, and builds fantasies of hir birds, and what s/he will do with them when Sosai finally lets hir move again.

"When I am emperor of the Earth," whispers Katse into the interminable darkness, licking chapped lips, "my harem will be incomparable. Legions of whores vying to the death for the honor of tearing my robes aside and sucking me. The Swan will have that honor, oh yes." In hir mind, s/he yanks all but the wings off hir cowering Swan. The face under the helmet, since Shiratori no Jun's is not known, is Nariko's, sharp and trapped. She paws for Katse's long, slender cock, sucks it like a pro.

Trapped in hir cage, s/he can only whimper and thrust feebly at nothing.

"And while I enjoy the Swan's mouth I shall watch the Condor (self-aware but uncontrollably stimulated) holding the Eagle down by force and _fucking_ him till he screams for mercy! Take THAT, take THAT, take it!" S/he has worked hirself into hysterics now, laughing and babbling and screaming for Sosai to let hir out.

Sosai doesn't. But the sensors in hir cage register the intensity of Katse's body responses and intervene to tranquilize hir. The hard bite of the needle digs like a thorn in hir neck and lodges there, throbbing, spreading the warm glow out to diffuse, to defuse...but even as s/he sinks down into twilight, Katse suffers, Katse burns.

***

At last, Joe subsides into real sleep, breathing evenly, and Ken can dare to look around at him.

Unlike before, Joe is not curled up tight for warmth -- just slumped on his side, arms drawn in and legs splayed out. His mouth is slightly open. Eyelids smooth -- not dreaming.

Ken carefully takes a deep breath, watching Joe's face for the slightest change as he opens his own mouth. Nothing. He can't taste blood anymore either. His head still aches from the impact with Joe's chin.

But the storm has passed, then. _For now_. Ken closes his eyes, slumps against the wall. 

Whatever they gave Joe, it doesn't seem very useful as an interrogation drug. Joe was talking complete nonsense before, spiders and blood and --

_Mama. Papa._

Not all nonsense. But nothing anybody could question. And...

And there is the chain. Ken picks up a bit of it and runs the links through his fingers. Why chain them together? What could be the purpose?

_Why drug him and leave me alone?_

Perhaps he should not wonder that. Perhaps he is next. 

Ken slowly gets up, stretching to his full height, and looks around.

The cell's surfaces are dark and shiny, like black glass -- the walls are as cold as the floor, and the ceiling is high overhead. The floor is not as shiny as the other surfaces -- it has a rougher, less slippery texture than the walls. Ken stretches his arms and then slowly walks as far as the chain permits, looking around, checking for weaknesses. The links rustle softly when he moves far enough away from Joe. 

_Why chain us together?_

...why chain us together naked?

Where in hell is the door?

He can't reach all the way across the cell with Joe senseless, unless he carries him. In the far corner he can see a shape which is almost certainly a toilet, black like everything else. But he'll need to look closely at the walls all around -- when he can reach them.

_To find the door. To get us out._

He cannot remember seeing anything during the stasis -- nothing definite. _Maybe... something white._

It makes him think bitterly of the birdstyles. Where are their clothes?

_More importantly, where are we?_

At last he comes back to sit down, close to Joe this time, to resume the offer of body heat. Body heat, in return for comfort. Though he's hardly comforted to watch Joe suffer. _Why didn't they do it to me?_

He closes his eyes. Tries to think. Next time the stasis hits, he has to be alert. Maybe he can find something out -- anything -- to get them out of this. 

Opening his eyes again he leans against the wall, trying to position himself so he can see the whole cell. Eventually they'll come in again. He watches and waits. 

He is so tired. So tired... 

He is playing a game of Go with someone he can't see. His bowl of stones shows that he is playing White, and on the board are two white stones together, under threat of capture, back to back in double _atari_. Black stones gleam around them, forming a perfect box. _Which way out..._ He is sure there is an opening, but he cannot see it... He squints, frowning, white stone between two fingers, trying to see where to move... 

Then something shakes him. 

Ken opens his eyes. He has the chain in his hand, one link pinched between his fingers. He drops it. Joe is awake.

"What..." Joe sits up dazedly, hand to his head. "What... happened..."

"You don't remember?" asks Ken, cautiously. 

"Nuh uh..."

"I think someone came in and drugged you," says Ken. "Why, I don't know." 

"...feel like shit..."

"We need to figure out where the door is..."

"what did you _hit_ me with..." rubbing his chin.

"My skull. And it was _your_ fault." 

Deep sigh. 

"Sorry."

Ken is so surprised by the apology that he blinks, then looks down. "No, it wasn't really your fault. You were out of it."

"No I mean... sorry I dragged you to the car show. You were right... wasn't a good idea."

"I said that 'cause I thought it was gonna rain," says Ken.

"Never rains but it pours," says Joe. 

"C'mon Joe... I can't reach unless you get up."

"Huh?"

"The chain." Ken points at it. It keeps them close together. They'll have to cooperate just to be able to use the toilet. 

Joe groans. But slowly he gets up. He moves as though his whole body is aching; Ken knows the feeling. 

They move around the cell. Except for the corners they can find no seams in the cold black glass. The ceiling stretches high overhead, and the lights flicker. 

At last they return to where they started. Ken rubs his forehead and tries to think. 

Joe leans back against the wall and then stiffens, jerking away from it with a hiss. "Goddamn cold..."

"Turn and lean against me." Ken turns his back toward Joe to illustrate what he means. 

They sit back to back, each hugging his knees. Joe's back against his is skin-intimacy again, but so much easier to withstand... and Joe can't see his face. 

***

"Hmm. The beta drinks... A lot, but he's not really used to anything else." Reiyaku Hakase looks thoughtful, shuffling through a pile of reference books and trade magazines. He comes up with a calculator, taps at it with a flurry of figures. He jots something down with a pencil, then reaches for the tray.

Nariko watches silently. She's as high as a fruitbat. It doesn't help.

He's about to send her in again. And she saw, she heard 'John' in there crying for his mother and father... he slept afterwards, more or less, in a heap in the corner. 'Robin' turned to look at him again and again, blue eyes shadowed, mouth a grim line. 

Nariko and 'Hakase' have been watching them through the one-way glass. The sliding wall that makes the door appear from a corner seam is transparent from this side. It's hard to look away from them. 

'Hakase' goes to use the bathroom, and Nariko goes to stand in front of the glass, watching them without the cameras. They move around the Cage, feeling the walls -- looking for a way out. 

'Robin' stands right in front of her, hands moving methodically over his side of the wall. 'John' stands near, of course, but instead of feeling the wall too he looks up at the ceiling, scowling at the distant lights. 

Nariko lifts one hand, tentatively touches the other side of the glass where 'Robin's' hand is.

"You like him," says 'Reiyaku Hakase', horribly close behind her. 

She manages not to jump, but her heart is pounding painfully hard as she turns her head. She shrugs. "He's kind of cute," she says carelessly. 

"Too bad for him." 'Hakase' plucks Nariko's hand up by the wrist, turns it over and drops the injector into her palm. "Next experiment: 'Knives', 10 milligrams."

She looks from the barrel's milky contents up to him. She can never quite focus on the pusher's eyes. Is it because he has shifty eyes, or because she does?

"Do you need any readings while I'm in there?" she can hear herself saying through a mile-long funnel of glass. He perks an eyebrow at her, pleased. 

"Good idea... you _are_ thorough." He is referring to a comment he made last night on her technique. She conjures up an answering smile, though it feels sick. He doesn't notice that, seeing only a smile. He's not very bright. Cunning, but not bright.

"Yes. Full scans on both of them this time, and two for the beta: one before the dose and one after...try to stay out of eyeshot and be quick as you can." He buckles on the stasis-null for her and pats her ass lingeringly. "I'll be waiting for you."

Nariko turns immediately to the door and waits for it to slide open again, so that she can struggle her way out of the frying-pan and into the fire...

***

Ken is turning to glance yet again over his shoulder at Joe when 

_! -- An icy-silver inchworm of fiery cold trickles up his spine -- !_

This time he knows what it means. The stasis is about to activate. He manages to focus fully on Joe before it tak --

_(shift... jumble, jumble, shift: dark apologetic eyes)_

\-- es hold. Then it's over. And Joe is sitting up, eyes big, breathing hard. What now?

"Out out out out!" barks Joe. "I want, I want out, OUT!" He climbs to his feet, bristling with violence, glaring balefully down at Ken. In other words, he looks normal...almost. His color is weird, and his wide dilated eyes are dark and cold as those of sharks.

Ken's seen Joe like this before. Not by virtue of any drug, but once or twice, in an extremis of rage that could not be penetrated by reason. The only thing to do with him in such a state of kill-lust is point him at the largest available group of goons and let him go.

Too bad it's just Ken here, locked in with him... chained to him..

In normal circumstances Ken can certainly take on Joe. These circumstances, however, are far from normal. He's exhausted, numb with cold, hungry and weak. And Joe is hyperstimulated, apparently inoculated against all of these effects. Ken sweeps his attention over his own body, swiftly. Someone has been near him -- there are a few jumbled images remaining from the stasis this time -- but again, he has not been drugged when Joe has.

_Why?_

He stays silent, down on the floor, keeping his eyes on Joe. Turning his back would be a mistake, and so would standing up. But no matter what he does or doesn't do, it'll be a provocation, Ken knows. Because he's _there._

Joe whirls and begins to beat at the wall with his fists, screaming. He's hurting himself, but Ken knows better than to try and stop him just now. "OUT let me OUT let me OUT you FUCKING BASTARDS let me OUT, GET ME OUT!!! KEN!" Whirling back toward Ken: "Come HELP ME!!"

Nonplussed, Ken stares at him a moment -- a moment too long for Joe. With a growl Joe leans down and grips the chain.

"I said COME HERE, you motherfucker!!" 

He hauls in on the chain, hard. Ken utters a " _huu!_ " of surprise as he is jerked forward by the leg, throwing his hand out too late to prevent the back of his head smacking on the floor.

At least he doesn't bite his tongue again. But he's dazed; indeed, he has a brief struggle not to pass out. He is vaguely aware of the rasp of the floor all along his back as Joe reels him in, cursing. 

"Christ's fucking SAKE I have to fucking do EVERYTHING you're just gonna fucking SIT THERE till they COME GET US or just fucking let us DIE you dumb bastard --!"

Now he's in reach and there is a total, bruising grip on Ken's throat. His vision is swimming, shot through with dark sparks. Instinct prompts him to fight, but he forces it back, because once Joe has hauled him to his feet -- by the throat! -- he lets go.

If a fight, a real fight gets started now, it _will_ end with at least one of them dead. There's no question about that. Which one doesn't really matter. Since he does not want to die -- and equally, does not want to live having killed Joe -- Ken decides that he must play along. 

So the both of them hammer uselessly at the wall for awhile. Joe screams words and phrases in a language Ken doesn't know. It must be Italian, or Sicilian... Ken can't really pay attention to that, occupied as he is with his own shouts of manufactured rage. These become easier and easier to produce as his fists begin to bleed. And the black glass wall takes no notice whatsoever.

***

"This is amazing!" enthuses Reiyaku Hakase; "Beta actually _decided_ where to direct the violence... 10mg must not've been enough... I wonder?..."

Nariko can't stand another moment. She shoves past him and slams her hand down on the emergency stasis button, freezing the prisoners in place on their feet. The pusher rounds on her, outraged by the interruption.

"What the hell d'you think you're doing??"

"LOOK at them!" she shouts. "Look what you've done to their hands! And -- alpha's _back!_ He might even have a concussion... Katse-sama wants them _undamaged_. How will you explain _that_??" Shielded as she is with an official reason to be angry, she can let her own real horror and fury through. Just a little. For just a moment. He's staring at her. 

"Your experiments are one thing, but we have _no way_ of knowing when she will be back -- or --" her voice drops a little lower -- "when _he_ will."

'Hakase' pales. Everyone knows that it's suicide to displease Katse-female, but Katse-male... the particular recreationals the pusher's been indulging in today, the ones that prompted him to think 'Knives' were a good idea, also dispose him toward paranoia.

He breaks a sweat. "Oh, gods...you're right, Nari-chan, you're right, oh gods, he could be here any time..."

Nariko just nods silently, watching him. 

"What do we do? What do we do?" He can't seem to think straight. His eyes dart guiltily from the monitor to the entrance to this room where Katse would appear.

Nariko takes a deep breath, suggests as calmly as possible: "Sedate them both, GENTLY, with something airborne, and drop the stasis. Once they're asleep we can go in and clean them up. -- Oh, for gods' sake! Put your head down between your legs and breathe. _I'll_ take care of it."

And she does. She dials in a sedative whose onset is slow enough that they will not crash to the floor the moment the stasis lifts. Then she hits the panic button again, releasing the freeze on the cell. Speaking of 'freeze'... while at it she fiddles with the thermostat.

They look confused. 'John' whacks the wall a few more times with his bloody fists, but more and more slowly. 'Robin', perhaps because of the blow to his head, folds first, sinking down graceful as a dancer. 'John' takes several agonizing minutes to completely succumb, going down first on one knee and then both before toppling over, clumsy and angry as a dying bear.

Nariko waits ten full minutes after the air has been cleared before daring to enter the cell. They'll be out for several hours, according to the specs on the sedative. She brings a med kit with her, and includes nutritional supplements without consulting 'Hakase'. There is no need to starve them, and the drugs are surely causing 'John' to burn his body's reserves even more quickly.

This task is much easier. The lack of stasis dragging at her limbs makes crossing the cell feel like bounding across the surface of the moon. And she is bringing them aid, this time.

The first thing she does is inject them both with the supplements, not troubling to hide what she's doing -- if 'Hakase' is even watching. The bump to 'Robin's' head does not seem to have been as bad as it looked from the other side of the glass; his pupils respond normally. Then she turns her attention to 'John'.

He has made a mess of his hands, but the damage is mostly superficial. She can have them almost fully healed by the time the sedative wears off. 'Robin's' injuries are less trouble than that, once she gets him turned over. His muscular back took a nasty scraping from the floor when John dragged him over by the chain -- Nariko's blood ran ice-water when she saw this happening, knowing it was a preview of what was to come. Now she stays focused, applies regen foam to the scrapes. Before she leaves she smooths back a lock of 'Robin's' wild brown mane, glancing at 'John's' face. 

***

When she emerges from the Cage, she stops short, the door sliding shut behind her. 

Katse is back.

Nariko stands very still, prey-instinct in the presence of a dangerous predator. She keeps her entire attention on the purple-and-red figure, knowing without knowing exactly how -- for he is still masked -- that he _is_ male this time. 

"Nariko. _There_ you are..."

Yes. When he speaks his voice is subtly different. This is Katse-male.

This is Katse-male, just back from a _very_ lengthy punishment by Sosai (they said "treatments", but some knew about the screams -- and goons gossip). 

"I must conduct some inspections," says Katse. He tosses her a bundle. "Put this on. I have plans for you when I get back."

And he sweeps out, leaving Nariko with a bundle she dreads to open, fearing what she'll find. 

Reiyaku Hakase sits utterly still in his chair, hyperventilating quietly with his eyes closed. He looks like a rodent that has felt an owl's shadow move across his back. 

Katse's masked majordomo comes in. "Katse-sama gave you an order. Go in there and put that on, whatever it is."

So Nariko, in one of Katse's purple-enamel, gold-leaf bathrooms, opens the bundle and stares at the costume it contains.

Then she rummages in her pocket for a _kiali_ capsule. She has access now to 'Hakase's' bag of tricks, and she's gonna need it to get through _this_. Ahh -- the sweet familiar languor... 

Gods, it's -- it looks like a perfect replica of the real thing -- she guesses Katse might have liberated it from Galactor Intelligence (yes, an oxymoron). It would definitely fool people. The seams and fastenings are cunningly concealed.

She takes a deep breath and strips, ignoring her reflection in the mirror (a woman twice the age of the real one!) as she dons the white feathers -- and SHORT little pink skirt!! -- of Shiratori no Jun. Boots, above the knee. Seams in front and back. Gloves, with a sort of bracelet on the left one.

_Seen something like that somewhere..._

Oh, the helmet. It's a good job, just like the pictures she has seen. When she puts it on, the yellow tint of the long visor makes everything look strangely monochrome to Nariko. 

There's just one part of the costume missing. 

The panties.

As a whore, Nariko's small stature and pointy, elfin looks gave her an illusion of youth which lasted longer for her as time went on than for most of the girls she knew when she began, at sixteen. She has always worn a girlish haircut to accentuate this, and even when she changed her vocation she preferred to keep the look, as perceived youth was also an advantage at the bargaining table. 

Now, it has betrayed her to Katse-sama. Dressing her up like the Swan of the Ninjatai... does not bode well for her, does it? Any more than those two men in the Cage will benefit from their roles. _Even if he doesn't kill me, he's going to hurt me._ She needs something. Anything. Just something stronger than one lousy little _kiali_ cap... her mind whispering to her over and over about how Kaori had been found after Katse-sama was done with her. 

Nariko had thought the typical _there but for the grace of the gods go I_ even as she sobbed for her friend's daughter, but now, the grace of the gods has come around to bite her in the ass. 

Finally she emerges, face hot with mortification. The majordomo comes back, getting right to the point. "Katse-sama will be here in half an hour. Everything must be ready. The subjects are to be prepared now." He looks everywhere but at Nariko in her little outfit. Everyone in Galactor has lost someone to the Ninjatai. 

She nods and turns away, to go back to the Cage room.

_The 'subjects...'_

All three of us.

***

Waking this time is quicker, but comprehension much slower to return. Ken tries to remember what happened exactly. His hands hurt -- but...? He looks at them. Some faint scrapes, but nothing like he expected to see. In fact, he feels pretty good: not so weak. And almost warm. 

But after awhile he cannot help but notice that he is still in a cell, still has a chain on his ankle --

_Joe! --_

But Joe is still sleeping, or unconscious anyway, a few feet away. Ken edges close enough to see that Joe's hands, too, have been doctored. 

But _why?_ He doesn't understand this. His eyelids droop. Tired. 

Although the temperature has definitely risen in here, Joe begins to shiver. Ken is less shy about it when Joe is asleep. He curls himself around behind Joe this time, and although he does not mean to, for a little while Ken sleeps. 

It's Joe's voice that wakes him, rumbling. Ken's cheek is pressed between Joe's shoulder blades. 

"...happened..." His voice is ragged from screaming. 

Ken lifts his head, looks over Joe's shoulder in an effort to see his face.

"what... happened..." Joe repeats.

"More drugs. You kind of lost it for a little while."

Low groan. "why..."

"I don't know..." No one has asked them anything. They just give Joe drugs as though watching his reactions... like a lab rat. 

_So what am I? The 'control' rat?_

***

Reiyaku Hakase gapes, then scrambles for his bag when Nariko walks in. "It's me!" she says hastily. "It's Nariko! What, do you have a gun in there..."

He looks guilty. "I thought... Wow. Nari-chan... you look _hot_ in that. Come here and let me get a taste."

"No time," she says curtly. "Katse-sama will be here in a few minutes. We have to get them ready now." Funny what a costume can do. She sounds brisk, unruffled, while her heart yammers in terror of what is coming. 

"Oh." And the costume works on him as well as on her. He nods briskly and turns to the bag again, this time to get the appropriate dose for the Big Show. "Don't forget the pheromone spray for alpha." It's not really a spray, any more than the injector is an old-fashioned syringe, but old names die hard, and it will serve the same purpose: to powerfully enhance 'Robin's' own natural pheromones.

"I won't forget." She buckles on the null-stasis belt around the waist of the costume; it makes the skirt ride up even shorter. "I'll need something. Something strong. Have it ready for me when I come out."

He nods. He does not ask why. 

Before she goes in, she takes off the helmet -- it will interfere with her vision in there. She loses some authority with it, though, because his hand slides up her thigh as she waits for the door to slide aside. 

However, the threat of Katse-sama arriving before his toys are ready is enough of a threat, even for him. He activates the stasis and lets her into the Cage.

***

Ken jolts free of the stasis he's been expecting, and wearily looks to Joe. _What have they done to him now...?_

_And what's... that **smell**...?_

Something odd. It tickles his nose. It doesn't smell _like_ anything and yet he keeps sniffing for it. _What is that? What is it?_ But even as he tries to identify it, it seems to die away, disappearing.

Joe blinks several times, looking almost normal. Lucid, anyway. Then... pupils dilating, face flushing, he licks his lips and rocks his head toward Ken.

Stares at him. 

Slow blink. Despite the glassiness, the direct intensity of his owl-dark eyes is breathtaking. 

Joe's skin is flushed, all over, and he is moving continuously, rubbing his back against the wall, arching his spine, flexing his shoulders. Ken glimpses his erection as he moves, drags his eyes back up to Joe's face.

Joe is looking at him. Oh, gods, the _way_ he's looking. Ken's wished to see this, but -- now, it's terrifying. This is not the way he wanted to see it. 

"Joe...?" Ken's voice is very low, but not quite a whisper. 

Joe moves then, crawls toward him. 

"Wait..." Ken tries to back up, but suddenly Joe is all over him, face pressed hard into his neck. 

"Oh god... you smell good. You smell so _good_ , Ken..." 

Ken doesn't know what to say to this. Thanks do not seem to be in order. Joe is... Joe is _touching_ him... hot and panting... murmuring low to him in that deep smoky voice, very low, but very near Ken's ear,

"like you've been out in the sun..."

Arms around him, Joe is nuzzling his neck, inhaling deeply. Then Ken starts in shock at the touch of Joe's tongue on his throat. 

"Ken," Joe breathes. "Ken... stop me..."

Ken is trying to catch his breath. Joe's hands are moving over his back, restless and hot. _What?_

Joe swings around, pushes Ken's back to the wall. Ken just looks up at him, eyes big, not quite able to believe it's happening. And Joe, despite the desperate heat wracking him, has horror in his eyes at his inability to stop. With a sob he presses forward and catches Ken's mouth with his, fiercely. 

Ken's mind whirls to a shrieking halt under the pressure of the kiss. As little as he likes his dream coming true this way, it's going to happen whether he wills or no. So Joe would win anyway, with the additional guilt of having beaten him before raping him. No, no... unfair, this sordid scenario, a desperate insult to the depth of his feelings. Chained together. Doubtless performing for someone's amusement, all the gods damn them! Because _someone_ is watching. The same _someone_ who keeps drugging Joe. _They want to see! They're going to see._

_Selfish. What is more important?_

He has to relinquish his dream, he realizes, no matter the insult, to save Joe's soul. He will make of it the celebration he wanted as best he can, consign the rest to karma. He can give this, at least. He slides his arms around Joe's neck. 

Joe breaks the kiss, gasping. "Stop me... for god's sake..." Now he is _nibbling_ on the side of Ken's neck. "Hurt me... knock me out... do something, make me _stop!_ "

His voice is becoming more breathy, more urgent. Ken is as hard as Joe now, quivering. When he manages to speak, his voice is even more affected, gasping for breath.

"Joe... if I do that... they'll just wait till you wake up and then give you even more." 

Joe shudders. "no..."

"Yes. They'll just keep upping the dosage till you give them what they want."

"don't let me do this... don't want to _hurt_ you..." 

Ken says low in his ear, "it's all right. it's not -- " in a rush -- " _not_ rape, Joe -- willing. I'm _willing_."

"Nani!" Joe shivers uncontrollably, shaking his head slowly from side to side in confusion, "you don't -- mean it...?" His hands move without his control, sliding along Ken's jaw, into his hair, down his finely muscled chest.

_Joe won't remember. Why not tell the truth?_

Ken clears his throat and whispers hoarsely, breath sharp with shock as fingers travel over him, insinuating along his inner thigh. "Always wanted you. Don't m-make me wait anymore, J--"

Joe does not let him finish. His lips and tongue stop Ken's words like a book slamming shut.

Ken leans into the onslaught, free for the first time ever to touch in passion, and as it is he must compete with Joe's own passion in order to do so. He is dragged into Joe's arms; Joe lies back with Ken pulled atop him, his hands on Ken's hips, fingertips digging firmly into his flesh. His hips rock, and the solid, silky heat of his cock makes Ken gasp as it slides along his own. 

At this first sound from Ken, Joe rears up and twists, turning Ken onto his back. A loop of the chain gets caught underneath him, links digging in painfully hard, and he struggles. Joe pulls back, shuddering, " _Now_ what --" halfway to reaching for him again, trembling with the effort to hold himself at bay. He is panting. He is beautiful.

Ken pushes up, reaches around his back and yanks the offending chain out of the way. He lies back again, knees parted, and opens his arms to Joe. 

And now -- and now, despite the ugly surroundings, it is like he wanted, after all. Joe surges into his open arms like a wave crashing.

Joe struggles to slow himself down, but Ken is responding, making it impossible. His hands move over Joe's back, everywhere they can reach: Joe presses against him, rocking harder. When Ken's hands slide lower, daringly, to cup Joe's ass and pull him closer, Joe moans.

"g-god Ken." Joe pushes up on his arms, lower body still in full contact, rocking and grinding as he looks down into Ken's face. Joe's pupils are so dilated that the blue-grey is no more than a slim pale ring around huge black irises.

Joe shakes his head hard several times, takes a deep breath, focusing enough to communicate. "Need you to -- do something." His voice is a rough rasp.

"Name it," whispers Ken.

"I've got cottonmouth," Joe says, licking his lips. "All we've -- all we've got is spit and I haven't got any. So..." trailing off.

Ken doesn't get this. And Joe apparently doesn't have any more attention to spare for tact. He leans down and says, very close to Ken's mouth, "Suck me. Get me wet, 'cause I'm gonna fuck you. Understand?"

Despite the clarity of this statement, Ken feels his face automatically blurring into his 'clueless' look, a defense against the shock of actually having heard that said. 

Until the ringing slap to his cheek knocks it off him again. He stares up, wide-eyed: Joe has punched him more times than he can count in the past -- and vice versa -- but he is certain that this is the first time Joe has ever _slapped_ him. 

Ken is used to ducking, dodging, hitting back, not lying there passive as the shock ripples dissipate. Most of his physical attention is diverted to the heat glowing along the right side of his face. -- _Most_ of it.

"I hate that look," says Joe in exactly the same tone as before. "Now: understand?"

"Yes," says Ken. What else can he say?

"Good." Joe's fingertips gentle half-apologetically over Ken's still-smarting cheek. Then he crawls up Ken's body to bring that rigid rod, dewy with pre-come (belonging to both of them) close enough to see and reach. 

Ken's eyes are round. This is a lot more real than his dreams. But he opens his mouth. And reaches to grip him, guiding him in. Closing his eyes, he suckles Joe, does his best to coat him with saliva, to spread the glistening-sweet nectar around with his tongue rather than simply lap it up, as he wants to do...

He begins humming low in his throat. He does not realize it for some time, but he is absorbing some of the drug through the fluid he now laps more and more eagerly from Joe's straining cock. All he can concentrate on is the penis in his mouth and the moans escaping Joe in response to what he does. 

"That's -- enough," rasps Joe, pulling back abruptly, breathing deeply. "That sweet mouth, you'll make me come -- "

"Oh, I _will_ make you come," Ken finds himself saying, his tongue loosening: "One way or another..." giving Joe a look of pure desire that he does not have to hide. 

Joe's eyes catch fire as he edges back. Ken opens his legs again, letting him in, and Ken is so hard, and hungry for what's coming. Heat courses through him, boiling in his veins. Joe aims his dripping cock and settles the tip against the opening, panting, straining to hold himself back, eyes squeezed shut.

Joe tries to speak, clears his throat and tries again.

"...love -- Love you." Gasps, now truly at the end of his control. "sssorry --" 

"Do it!" snarls Ken, and then he does scream, once. Inexperienced and unprepared, this is surely inevitable. He would scream _more_ than once, gladly, but -- the haunted look in Joe's eyes reminds him that it's _not_ just himself suffering, no matter how things seem. 

So Ken must struggle not only with the invasion but his responses to the struggle -- panting, feet flexing, desperately trying to do the one thing his body is not inclined to do in this situation -- _relax_.

_It hurts._ He'd known it was supposed to a _little_ , but -- god, it's overwhelming, like no other form of pain, it hurts _so bad_ \-- 

_it's Joe, he doesn't mean to hurt, it's Joe so it's OK -- !_

Tight... shoving... _relax!_ and... then... Ken feels, from inside, a heat that shocks him -- a deep... sweet... melting... _"oh!"_ The pain seems to roll back, and relaxant factors in the drug that's now working on him speed his adjustment to the invasion. Now it feels... _oh gods! good... So... good._ " _Joe!_ " Soon he is thrusting up impatiently. 

"Don't hold back, let go, c'mon Joe -- MORE -- m-more _please_ \-- !" 

Joe probably doesn't even hear him. But he does comply. As far gone as he is, even he can tell it isn't rape, and they are lost in the moment. Joe mutters a litany of words Ken doesn't understand, though the meaning is well enough conveyed. Things like _oh god_ , certainly, and _yessss_ , and other passion-words... Ken says them too, in Japanese.

At about this point the realization dawns upon him that he is... under the influence. That he drank the delirium in from Joe's mouth, Joe's skin. Ken pants, hips rocking, impaled -- ah, incredible. He does not trouble to resent, just this moment, the sweet madness that suffuses him, them both. He wails aloud in pleasure, hoarse cries that shake as they slam together and apart. 

_interconnected. oh joe and it was forced on you so much more cruelly than you imagine it forced on me. yesss and more, more. oh yes. joe fuck me fuck me... and you do and you are and you're in me and ah god yes yes yes joe I love you and ohh --_

Joe's hair hangs forward from his face, damp with sweat, swinging as he lunges... Ken, excited past reason, grapples with him, bites at his neck. They do not stop.

Lights strobe behind his eyelids, streaming like fireworks. Filled and filled, and _he said he loves me_ and all of his attention centers on his hips bucking in counterpoint with Joe's, thrusting hard as Joe thrusts hard -- years of needing this granted, in one deliriously intense and terrible moment.

Terrible, because he cannot quite forget that they are imprisoned and observed, that someone wanted to see a rape. Despite the violence of their movements, this clearly isn't it.

_Fuck you, whoever you are. Fuck me, Joe..._

Joe is growling and speeding up, reaching a frenzy Ken can match. Joe reaches between them, then, his hand grasping Ken's aching-hard erection firmly, eyes squeezed shut. Joe's relentlessly pistoning cock is thickening, Ken can feel it inside, even as Joe starts to tremble. 

Ken feels it all build up to a terrifyingly large wave, as Joe's hand on him yanks him to the edge. A wave like this hits, it obliterates anything it touches... ah -- _ah_ \-- 

"JOE GOD YES JOE --!" There's no stopping it, and he tumbles into the flood of sensation, coming with unimaginable intensity -- spurting for what feels like forever, gasping and clutching at Joe...mind fountaining into sparks... floating along with the tide.

Joe slams in one last time and freezes, back arched and straining, pouring sweat, head tipped back -- then what can only be described as a howl boils up from him, ricocheting off the walls of the cell. Ken can't quite clearly feel Joe coming inside him -- but in the throbbing, and the heat, and the sound and sight of Joe lost to pleasure, he knows --

_Nothing will ever be the same._ Joe may not remember, but Ken will never forget.

Joe is trembling in his arms. Joe is shuddering... is Joe _crying?_

"Joe," incredulous whisper, "what is it...?"

Choked noise. Joe pulls out, almost too slowly: instead of a gentling motion it seems more like a caress. Ken reaches out to try to stop him -- _oh, don't leave me already..._ but Joe won't be stayed. He withdraws, hanging his head.

"I'm sorry --!" It turns out that that's what the choked noise had been, an "i'm sorry", too tightly compressed between his teeth to understand.

"Don't say that," whispers Ken. "I'm not." 

He refuses to let Joe slink away in shame to the end of the chain. He drags Joe back into his arms and holds him till he feels the resistance melting away.

They hold each other, drowsing, a stolen moment of heaven in their cell and chains. Joe's sleepy drifting fingers on Ken's shoulder and collarbone are gentle and wondering. Soon they are vague and uncoordinated. Ken too is slipping off to sleep, between the drug he ingested secondhand and the natural endorphins that follow orgasm.

"I've always loved you," Ken murmurs into Joe's hair; "always."

***

Katse stares in incredulous disgust. "What was that?? Only one of them was to be drugged!" Nonetheless he licks his lips, face flushed. 

Nariko says, breathlessly, "Your orders were followed, Katse-sama --"

He rocks her head back with a hard slap. His blond beauty truly belies his nature; it's no wonder he masks it. "Keep sucking, I'm not talking to you. WELL?"

'Hakase' babbles, fear laying the jargon on thick, "Katse-sama -- there seems to be -- a closer relationship between the subjects than was apparent... you must certainly understand... pre-existing circumstances... incomplete data... results unpredictable..."

Annoyed at every turn, stimulated but frustrated, Katse turns his head to eye the sleeping beauties. "What can we give them? Both of them, this time. Make them hurt each other. Never mind the fucking, I've seen it. I want you to make them _bleed_... "

Nariko chokes. Katse pulls her up by the hair. Her helmet lies tossed aside on the floor. 

"You need to do better than that, little 'Swan'. You need to please your new master... or do I need to send for a squad of goons to enjoy you? How they _will_ enjoy you... especially when I tell them you're the real thing."

_I'm going to die. I've done everything right and I'm still going to die._ As she kneels there between Berg Katse's legs she hears Reiyaku Hakase saying, "yes, have just the thing, not to worry Katse-sama, you'll get what you want -- "

Oh, yes, he always gets what he wants. Who knew what little game Katse-sama was playing when he did what he did to Kaori. No doubt it was something like this. 

" -- the shortest delay only, unavoidable, for the most potent effect -- "

"Delay?" Katse-sama's voice rises dangerously, fingers tightening in Nariko's hair.

"Only a short one, Katse-sama, I assure you. Twenty minutes at most... I must include a nullifying agent for the previous drug. I promise you won't be disappointed. They'll be like wild animals."

_You monster, you fucking monster._ It's all she can do to keep herself from gagging. _You'll get what you want again and no one will care. Like poor Kaori!_

"Well, I'm not sitting around here. Come get me when they're ready."

Then his hand in her hair yanks her up off him, gasping. His eyes looking down at her are cold, so cold. "Go on in there and give them their medicine. Then hurry back to my bedroom, 'Swan'. We'll have... a little fun while we wait."

_A little fun._ "...hai." Her lips are numb.

She stands up. Katse-sama pushes back on the chair and stands up, exiting the room without a backward glance.

Everything moves so slowly. Her throat is tight. She longs for _kiali_ but if she tries to chew one now, she'll vomit. 

A little fun, like he had with Kaori. A little _fun_ , with his 'little' toys that tore her apart from inside. Her neck was broken too. _Probably to stop the screaming._ And the blood had been everywhere.

Kaori, who at six had picked flowers for Nariko once when she was sick. Never mind that they were really weeds and the pollen made her allergies worse. In all of Nariko's life, only Kaori ever gave her flowers. 

Kaori, who was smart and funny, who could make anyone laugh. 

Kaori, who came to Nariko and begged her to help her get into the business, to make some money for college. Her mother, Yuki, Nariko's old roommate, didn't want her to follow in her footsteps, but Kaori always rebelled against Yuki, always wanted to be like Nariko... Nariko had liked that. She'd encouraged it, making it sound as though _she_ knew what she was doing, like it was really all just fun and nice clothes and outrageous stories.

_I got her into this. And she never came out._

Now Nariko will be like Kaori. Soon, now. She's dead, no matter what she does.

_**We'll** have a little fun while we wait._

_Come get **me** when they're ready. _

Reiyaku Hakase moves toward her and presses the injector into her hand. Double barrelled. He doesn't say anything this time. He doesn't even look at her. 

_I'm a ghost already._

***

Ken wants to sleep and sleep, in Joe's warm embrace -- but he can't. Some part of him has not forgotten where they are, no matter how sweet the stolen moment was, it was still theft. There might be repercussions. Or, just the next experiment. 

"Joe," he murmurs in his ear, shaking him gently. Joe grumbles and tries to nestle against him as though mutely pleading for five more minutes.

"Joe. We can't sleep, c'mon..."

Joe pushes up on one arm, then sags against the wall. Ken sits up, looking around. He flushes as he wonders where they can see in from... _did you have a good **view?**_

_I'll make you sorry you saw it, I'll make you sorry you did that to Joe..._

Just give me a chance... one chance... 

And then,

_! -- An icy-silver inchworm of fiery cold trickles up his spine -- !_

***

The stasis locks down. 

Nariko goes in. 

The first thing she focuses on is 'Robin's' face. And oh... she knows what he is thinking.

She glances down at the belt. DANGER. Upside down. _Does it still count?_

_Uh oh, moving too slow._ You can get giddy if you do this too long, and she has forgotten the earmitter, so 'Hakase' can't get her attention. 

'Robin' looks angry, angry and ashamed at what has happened. _Of course. You feel like that, at first._ She fancies herself having a conversation with his eyes as she steps closer. 

_I'm sorry about this._

**Fuck you,** his eyes say.

_I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't mean to get Kaori into this._

**What do I care,** say his eyes. **What do I care what you meant or didn't mean.**

_I had no choice. It wasn't my fault!_

**And what are you doing now?**

She stops in front of him. 

She glances down, sees the chain running from his ankle to 'John's'. Glances over at 'John', whose eyes are half open, mouth shut in a grim line as he stares at the floor.

Then she looks at the injector in her hand. Katse-sama's female voice giggles, _I want to watch them tear each other to pieces!_

**Something else that isn't your fault?**

She smiles, though there is a knife of panic in her chest. She steps forward as though to give 'Robin' his shot. What does it matter? She's dead already. 

_Katse-sama... you're not getting what you want this time._

This is for you, Kaori.

She 'trips' over the chain in her path, going down on one knee, and stumbles into 'Robin', falling into his lap. 

There can be no second try. He's got to do something. She leans into him...

Contact. The null effect surrounding her spreads to him, and she stares into his eyes, which suddenly blink and focus. 

In the next instant there is a hideous, wrenching pain in her guts as the stasis-null unit is wrenched off her. Then she freezes, caught mid-fall, mid-scream, trapped in clear amber. 

***

Out in the observation room, the man who calls himself Reiyaku Hakase gasps, " -- no!" He scrabbles in his bag, pulls out a snub-nosed pistol.

He fires it once, into the cell. The bullet crosses the threshold -- and _stops_ , hanging there in the air, caught in the stasis. The alpha, eyes blazing, comes right toward it, dragging the beta, hugging the stasis-null unit in between them. They sidestep the motionless projectile and lurch forward, out of the Cage.

***

Ken drops Joe and the stasis null device, and makes straight for the man in the white coat, who is staring at them, frozen in sheer panic.

He brushes the gun aside and breaks the man's neck in one snap. The sound fills the room like another gunshot. Then, the thud of the body falling down. All the while, Ken's face is like a mask of ice. 

_Son of a bitch._ The sick pig in charge of this circus... and Ken had thought it would be Berg Katse. He stands there, teeth gritted, trying to bring his rage under control, to focus. There is no one else here. The doors leading out are shut, and the walls appear to be soundproofed. _No one heard the shot._

Joe is leaning against a chair, eyes at half-mast, shaking his head as though trying to clear it of cobwebs. He blinks at the corpse, then says in a raspy voice, "na... Genius... how do we get outta here now...?"

Ken, breathing hard, does not speak. He turns toward the cell. The door is still open, the stasis still engaged. 

There she is, the woman dressed in an outfit like Jun's, frozen mid-fall near the floor, her skirt riding up. Joe blinks at her, his mouth open. "...the hell...?" Ken hears him mutter. "what kind of kinky place...?"

Ken shoots him a withering glare, then looks down, studying the layout of the console. He reaches out to hit the button marked STASIS CONTROL. 

She slumps instantly. There is a loud _crack_ that makes them both jump: the bullet, its forward momentum arrested, falling to the floor in the sudden silence of the stasis generator.

Ken goes to the entrance of the cell -- and the chain jerks. He turns his head. Stares at Joe. Joe reluctantly comes forward, back into the cell, so that Ken has enough slack to reach the girl and drag her out. Not a girl... a woman. She looks from one to the other of them fearfully. Her eyes light on the slumped corpse of the man in the white coat and widen. 

Ken speaks at last, says in a deadly cold voice, "You're lucky. If we didn't need you to show us the way out of here, you'd be joining him."

She drags her eyes back to him, and nods once, gulping. 

"We need something to cut this chain off us. And where are our clothes?"

"... My quarters. I -- I can get you something to cut the chain... and some coveralls or something..."

"Yes, in the meantime. But we'll need our clothes. We have to get them."

"There's -- a laser gun... I saw it in one of the other rooms..."

"Get it. And if you're not back in less than five minutes, lady... I am going to hunt you down and tear your heart out through your throat." For some reason she flinches at the word 'lady'. "Do you understand? And --" almost spitting the words, "one more thing. _Get out of that uniform_."

She blinks at his vehemence, then nods quickly. "...understand."

She goes out, shutting the door behind her.

And they're alone in here, in the observation room.

Joe is frowning down at the body. His eyes are barely open, glittering slits in his haggard face. He turns his head toward him and mumbles, "Ken...?"

"Yeah?" 

"...did I miss something?"

Ken feels a sensation like the impact of a roundhouse kick to the center of his chest. For a moment, he can't get his breath back.

_It's better this way. You know that._

"Not much," says Ken hoarsely, and turns away again, struggling to keep the icy mask on his face. He looks at the control panel, the screens... on the floor, the spilled satchel of drugs, a white helmet like Jun's. _Why is she dressed like Jun? This man knew who we are?_ It's hard to imagine how such people think.

One minute passes. He's looked at the screens and the things on the floor dozens of times already, counted the shiny scattered pills. 

Two minutes. She had better hurry. Ken's got nothing left to look at but Joe...

***

_I thought I would die. I thought it would kill me!_ The warning signs must have been wrong. Her heart is pounding, she's sweating and shaking -- but that's terror. 

She is walking _into_ Katse-sama's quarters and he is waiting for her. Now things will be worse, a thousand times worse if he catches her! No pretense at games but real torture! She set the prisoners free and 'Hakase' is dead. 

_If that gun isn't still there... so am I, either way._

Everything around her seems to loom up as though she has a fever. _Breathe. Think!_ Where did she see it? She was standing over there, and Katse-sama was talking to 'Hakase', and put the gun down... over there, that table. She starts toward it, her guts knotted with tension.

Then she goes very still. Her eyes track through the dim light to the door to the master bedroom, standing ajar.

"Is that you, my 'Swan'...?" Katse-sama calls from within. "I've got the most delightful little game for us to play."

_Move. Move!_

Two more steps. Three. She catches the end of the little table. Sweat is beading on her forehead. 

The gun is still there. 

"Yes, sama," she says. "Just a moment. I'll be right there." Her hand closes on the gun. "I need to use the toilet." _And pray all the gods my clothes are still in there, too._

"Make it quick," he warns, a dark thread audible now in his manic cheer.

"Hai."

_Make it quick._ Oh, yes.

Quick steps into the bathroom, _oh gods where did I leave -- ah!!_ She sheds the white wings, the pink dress, the gloves and boots, _hurry, hurry_ , shoving her own black clothes back on. She learned long ago, when you take off your clothes for a living, to put them down ready to be put back on in a hurry. Nothing inside out. But this time, she casts the Swan clothes aside in disarray. _I'm never wearing them again._

She can't find her shoes. _No more time!_ She must do without them. She turns on the sink tap, then eases silently out of the bathroom door with the laser gun clutched in her sweating hand. Eases that door shut again with the faintest _click. Did he hear?_

Now she is glad she has no shoes, silently fleeing across the thick purple carpet, feeling every second the long, hard fingers of Katse-sama about to grasp her by the hair. She reaches the door to the Cage area, almost falls through it as the knob turns. 

'Robin' takes the gun from her hand as though she were aiming it at them. She leans against the wall, trying not to fall down. "Hurry," she pants, "Quickly, we have to get out of here."

They don't seem to need her advice. The chain is cut within seconds, leaving them wearing only the cuffs. 'John' seems to revive a little, and he goes into the cell, bending to pick up the aborted bullet. Then he takes the pistol from 'Hakase's' stiffening hand, pops it open, and replaces the bullet in the chamber. 

"No sense wasting a good bullet," he growls. 

His voice is so deep out here, outside the filter of the cage's sound system, that it makes her shiver. She looks down... sees the gleam of red-gold capsules spilled on the floor out of 'Hakase's' black bag.

She stoops quickly, grabs a handful. Getting back up on her feet -- is unexpectedly difficult. She's out of breath... Then 'Robin' slaps them scattering out of her hand, and she jumps with a startled cry.

"Clothes," says 'Robin'. His anger is like the burn of extreme cold, his blue eyes blazing at her. "Never mind your drugs, we need something to wear, to get to our clothes!"

One capsule sticks to her sweating palm, and she surreptitiously closes her fingers around it.

He looks as though he's going to shake her, and if he shakes her she'll vomit. "Through that door," she says, "supply locker -- twenty feet to left. Maintenance stuff..."

"Go. Get something for both of us."

She nods. She doesn't have to be told to hurry. She goes out, pocketing the one kiali capsule. _Save it. I only get one, I might need it later..._

From the supply closet, she grabs grey maintenance coveralls and boots. They can't all of them go barefoot. Too bad there are no boots here small enough to fit her.

Katse-sama is going to get tired of waiting for her any moment. He will come looking for her. She tries to run back to the observation room, then fetches up short with a gasp as pain knifes through her abdomen. 

_Breathe. Breathe._

Hurts. It hurts...

She grits her teeth, tries to keep from gasping. 

She had thought... it would kill her right away. But apparently it's not that kind of DANGER. Apparently it's something... that takes a little longer. 

_Don't stop moving._

She opens the door and they empty her hands before she can even get all the way into the room. 

They dress quickly as though they're used to moving at speed. "Now where?"

"My quarters. Six levels down. On the other side of the main section... the 'temporary' housing behind the old part of the engine..."

They look at each other. Of course... they don't even know they're on a mecha. Why would they? All they have seen of it is the inside of a black glass box. 

"Let's go, " says Robin. "Come on. Show us where." Now that he has clothes on, he seems even more commanding, if that's possible. 

"This way," she says, and turns toward the lift. 

Her quarters are not near, of course. Katse-sama's suite is in the best part of the mech, and Nariko is a nobody, a camp follower. It's a long, long way, when you are starting to feel sure you must be bleeding inside. She tries to take deep breaths as she walks. Her heart is pounding. 

They have to take three different lifts, and there are stairs too. Nariko is sweating, yet shaking with cold. 

She pauses, gasping, and feels a hand grip her arm like a vise. She opens her eyes again to stare at 'Robin's' face, his dark brows drawn together in a frown. "What's wrong with you?" he asks, in a tone that doesn't tell her whether he's concerned or inconvenienced. "Are you hurt?"

"Taking belt off... in stasis... not so good for you," she mutters. He opens his mouth to say something else when a voice calls, "Hey! Nariko!"

All three freeze.

"Is that you, honey?" He's a goon chief. He used to be a regular. "Aw -- I see you've got some friends already... been having a party in Maintenance?"

She grits her teeth, tries to keep from gasping. "About to, sugar. With my handy men here."

He laughs knowingly. "I bet!"

"Come on, _baby_ ," says 'John', and his voice, harsh and urgent, cuts across the light tone, making the older man blink. 

"Gotta go," says Nariko, grinning big and bright with teeth gritted against the knife dancing wildly in her gut. "C'mon boys."

"See you later," he calls hopefully after her. She would smile grimly, but she's trying not to puke.

"Now where?" 'Robin' prods her with his impatient voice. 

"Left here. Down utility stairs..." 

Now they have her between them, holding her up by the elbows. The stairs are even worse than she'd feared. Going down them makes her vision grey out.

"Hey!" hisses 'John'. "Which room!" 

She comes to with a start that makes her want to scream. They are in her corridor, a row of different colored doors. "Third -- on left -- blue door!" she chokes. Oh gods, she's going to be sick -- "Lock -- 44527-red-blue-blue..."

Things go dim as she hears the beeping of the combination being keyed in by 'Robin' while 'John' holds her up. It slides open, and within moments she is bouncing down on her own narrow bed. Nariko gasps, manages to turn over, and retches, shuddering.

"Are you all right...?"

She waves him off, whichever one said it. Of course she's not all right.

They find the box with their clothes. She can see them through slitted eyes as she lies there panting. Robin steps between her and John for a moment, and then John has some kind of gun in his hand, with an attachment on it that he starts using to cut away the cuffs. Two precise cuts each in just the right places, and they're free of their bonds. 

_Where was the gun?_ Nariko never noticed it before. She'd checked their pockets, of course. Apparently not well enough, though.

They exchange the coveralls for their own clothes. They pick up the bracelets -- then after a moment, realize they've got the wrong ones and exchange them. As she watches 'Robin' attach his on his left wrist... Nariko's eyes widen.

There was one just like it on her own left wrist, when she was dressed as the Swan.

_Oh... gods! No. Can't be..._

She almost stops breathing. It is so stunning that even her pain freezes in disbelief. 

Her bracelet was fake, a costume prop.

Theirs are real. The real thing. 

They're _real_...!

She sold them to Katse-sama as stand-ins for the real thing, and they _are the real thing!_

The world seems to pause around her. For just a moment, as she struggles with wonder. 

Her meaningless, tiny life -- _once a whore, always a whore_ \-- spent like a dog at a mad king's manor, living on scraps and kicks... Nariko, insignificant being, suddenly realizes for one trembling, amazed moment -- _I am important._

_Now, here, at the end. I... I will be the one to do this. To snatch the Eagle and the Condor from the clutches of Berg Katse._

She knows a sudden, thrilling urgency. _I have to make sure they get out. I have to make sure that monster doesn't find us._

_Take that, Katse- **sama**. You're not going to get what you want this time, after all._

She pushes up on one elbow. The _kiali_ capsule is still in her pocket - she digs it out, and it sticks to her sweaty hand. _Last call_. One last one, for the road.

She puts it in her mouth, bites down. The hideous taste makes her throat work, saliva filling her mouth. She lets the thick syrup slide under her tongue, to let the drug absorb as quickly as possible through the many tiny capillaries there. She knows she's going to vomit, there's no helping that. 

She holds out against it as long as she can. She is grimly unsurprised when most of what comes up is blood.

They look horrified, and move as though to help her, but she holds up a hand to ward them off. 

Some of the _kiali_ makes it in. The pain -- cannot go away, but its hold on her eases. 

"What's the matter with her?" she hears 'John', the Condor say in a low voice. "Something about the stasis...?"

"I don't know," says the Eagle. "Maybe the drugs..."

Nariko laughs. She wipes her mouth and sits up completely, swinging her feet to the floor. 

"Not to worry, fellas. That was definitely my last one." 

She gets up.

"I'll show you how to get out of here. -- You guys can fly, right?"

They blink at her.

"A _plane_ ," she says gently. "That's the only way off this thing."

"I can fly," says the Eagle. "Just get us there."

For a few minutes, she feels pretty good. Buoyed up by _kiali_ and by the revelation that she _matters_ , it seems everything will be all right.

But it wears off. It always wears off...

_And it was the last one._

***

Katse bursts into the bathroom and stares in outrage at the water running in the sink, at the pink and white uniform strewn around. "Nariko!!" She is not here.

S/he bares hir teeth. _Where the hell could she have...?_ S/he strides angrily across the suite to the door to the Cage room, wrenches it open. 

Drugs all over the floor, drug dealer all over the floor, empty cage and no Nariko! Discarded chain, and hir _own_ laser gun beside it!

Clenching hir fists, Katse screams in frustration.

"MY BIRDS!! WHERE ARE MY _BIRDS_ , YOU LITTLE BITCH!??"

The majordomo comes running, freezes at the sight of everything obviously gone wrong. Katse grabs him by the front of his robes. 

"Call out guards! Stop them! Find them!"

"H-hai sama!" The man is trying to go and follow this order, but his master continues to shout and shake him, almost spitting in his face.

"I want them back! I want them back _right now!_ GET THEM -- or I'll kill you in their place!!"

"Hai sama!"

At last Katse lets go, and the major-domo runs to call out security to the launch bay area. Where else would they go? 

***

"Now what?"

"Right. Then down."

This time they don't have to go as far. Launch bay is at the bottom, facing aft. Since Nariko lives in what is essentially steerage on a large, ever-cruising ship, for once her quarters are convenient to something. More or less.

Nothing is really _convenient_ \-- walking is becoming a torment again now that the drug has worn off. But lying down to wait for death would be a torment too. They aren't out yet. She can feel it in her heart, _it's not finished._

"Here," she gasps at last. "through here," and then she is leaning against a wall, trying to breathe, trying to stay on her feet. Just through the big double doorway is a wide open space, gunmetal grey, and an assortment of shapes -- parked ships. There are a few shiny ones that match, but most of them are obviously ancient.

Beyond that, the massive doors... 

"We've got to get those doors open," says Eagle. "Where are the controls?"

"I don't know... I don't know anything about it. I've only been in here once..." When she arrived. 

"Gotta be over there," says Condor, gesturing at a large ganglion of wiring on the far side of the doors. 

She'll never make it over there now. And they don't need her anymore. She takes as deep a breath as she can. It's not very deep. _The end of the road._

"Come on," one of them says to her, she's not sure which, and then she's being dragged into the launch bay. _Wait!_ But there isn't even time to protest, and anyway she hasn't got the breath. 

They certainly seem to know what they're doing. Condor yanks open a panel and gets to work. _I bet he can hot-wire a car_ , thinks Nariko dreamily.

He can certainly hot-wire a door. A massive hiss of hydraulics, and the launch bay doors begin to slide apart.

Then one of them curses -- Eagle. Nariko stares in puzzlement at the doors. _They're open aren't they? What is he cursing at?_

She looks around blinking, focuses. Then realizes that there are green-shirt goons pouring in to the launch bay -- blocking them off from the ships. 

The two men look at each other. It's as though they converse with their eyes. Condor glances at her. Eagle glances at the open doors. They nod. 

Eagle grasps Nariko by the arm and starts to pull her, _toward_ the doors wide open to the sky. "Wait!" she gasps. There's no need to save her, no point! She tries to struggle, but she is so weak now, and he is so strong. "you don't... understand..." Her own heartbeat is deafening her. 

She tries to get breath to scream, but all she can do is gasp as he clutches her against his chest and jumps out into space.

Blind terror! Falling! 

Agony, as she struggles for breath in his tight grasp.

_I'm not going to make it to the ground anyway..._

Cold wind rushes everywhere, so loud, as loud as her heart -- to one side, a bright flash.

Confusion and grappling in the roaring wind and she is torn from Eagle's arms -- to be borne up with a bruising grip under her own arms. 

She is facing Eagle as he free falls. He moves his left arm, lips moving -- she cannot hear what he says.

Gasping, tears streaming, arms spread as though she is herself flying, she beholds:

_A flare of impossible radiance forming a halo_ \-- it surrounds the mortal falling through the air, transforming him into a comet, then an angel... _a dazzling-bright nova of coruscating sparks swirls around him..._ filling her wondering eyes with a vision of flight.

_White wings._ The roaring air filling her ears no longer feels cold. The bright blur all around her is darkening, going away... 

there are only the wings, bright white as a cloud, 

and she smiles, arms outspread, flying, _free --_

_Kaori..._

_I've got... such a story to tell you..._

*

*

*

*

******

"WELL?" Gloved hands clutch the arms of the chair.

"Katse-sama -- apparently they -- jumped."

"JUMPED?"

The majordomo is pale and sweaty below the cover of his mask. He licks his lips nervously.

"I did receive a report -- a possible Ninjatai sighting -- "

Katse laughs mockingly.

"What a ridiculous excuse! Are you trying to tell me the _Ninjatai_ would come here to rescue two anonymous men that little bitch found in a slave consignment? As if I would fall for that. Have whoever told you such a pathetic lie killed."

The majordomo licks his lips, wondering if he should tell the rest of what he was told, that the men fell from the mecha and became the Eagle and the Condor before their eyes...

But no. Katse-sama is already frothing at the mouth, that wild gleam in his eyes. The majordomo doesn't want to die, not today, and certainly not for that "little bitch" and two men who may or may not (by some _incredible_ coincidence) have been the real thing.

"Hai, Katse-sama," he murmurs, backing softly away.

But Katse has forgotten him already. 

***

_Those eyes_ , s/he muses, chin in hir hand. _Those blue eyes._ S/he had seen them up close, but not been seen by them. 

_The real Eagle could never have eyes like that._ No, nothing real is ever as good as the things s/he creates for hirself. 

S/he knows that. S/he knows that because Sosai-sama tells hir so.

And Sosai, after all, is always right.

*********

__O then into a fury the stranger he grew  
And gave him a damnable look,  
And with it a blow that laid him full low  
And tumbl'd him into the brook.  
  
"I prithee, good fellow, O where art thou now?"  
The stranger in laughter he cry'd;  
Quoth bold Robin Hood, "Good faith, in the flood,  
And floating along with the tide."  
  
\-- 'Robin Hood and Little John', Child , 'A Collection of Old Ballads', c. 1723  



End file.
